finished: fancy fox quilt

Tags

fancy fox quilt, finished quilts, liberty

I have procrastinated writing this post almost as long as it took me to actually make this quilt. Which is to say, I’ve been sitting on a finished quilt and photos for almost a week. And this little quilt took me a week and a morning to make.

When Elizabeth Hartman started instagramming about her Fancy Fox quilt pattern, and mentioned it was perfect for Liberty fat eighths, I knew it was for me. I had joined Westwood Acres’ Liberty club in January, promising myself that I’d actually USE these luxury fabrics instead of just collecting them. The first month I did great, cutting into a couple of the fabrics for a small pillow project. The next few months I maybe played with a few fabric pulls including the Liberty, but mostly I let these fat eighths sit on the shelf.

I have been buying some Liberty yardage too. A yard here, a yard there. I did a Liberty and Peppered Cotton Ruby dress (I should really blog the three Rubies I made!), and I made some Liberty napkins for a friend’s birthday. I wasn’t letting big pieces of Liberty sit on my shelf!

In the spirit of applying maximum Liberty directly to my person, I pulled thirteen club favorites, added some scraps of a separately-purchased Liberty favorite (Kayoko, oh my) and whipped up the throw size quilt. Just for me. I used Peppered Cotton in Fog from Sew Fresh Fabrics for background and sashing. Kona Pepper and Snow were the muzzles and eyes.

If you’re considering making this quilt, know that it sews up SO FAST. It’s a fast cut, and a fast sew, and it is so fun and satisfying to see favorite pieces of precious fabric made into these funny cute fox faces. I was done with the quilt top before I expected to be, and was caught without a backing plan. I had two meters of Liberty Scilly Flora from the first Massdrop buy (ended up being $23/meter, shipped, which is crazy a good deal) and had dragged my feet about the right dress pattern for it. Turns out it was the perfect amount to back and bind this quilt.

Quilted with some Aurifil 2600 and a dense vertical squiggle, this quilt became luxuriously textured. It washed great and it is a super-light, smooth, cool-feeling quilt to use during the summer months.

I can tell you this: I won’t be sharing this one. Not even with Lucy.

finished: snake trail quilt (the cerise beast)

Tags

cerise beast, finished quilts, snake trail quilt

As I edit these photos, I’m still not sure quite how this quilt happened.

Of course, I’ve wanted to make this quilt since Denyse Schmidt’s book Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration hit my doorstep a couple of summers ago. I had this FQ bundle of the Flea Market Fancy Legacy reprint–only the second FQ bundle I had ever purchased!–and really needed to do just the right thing with it. I thought of copying Angela at Fussy Cut’s amazing, bright elongated long cabin take on the original line. I thought about making Sew Crafty Jess’s Lucky Square pattern. I thought about making a fan quilt; Suburbs; a Red-Pepper-Quilts-style simple HSTs-with-white quilt. But really? In my quilter’s heart I knew it had to be Snake Trail for this fabric, fabric that seemed too good and too special to cut into.

But when I decided this a couple of years ago, I wan’t quite a skilled enough quilter to make it happen. I just didn’t have the chops. I struggled with FMQ. I struggled to make some blocks lay flat. I kept not making the quilt, and I kept not being quite able to use the Flea Market Fancy fabric for anything. In the meantime, though, I made a whole bunch of quilts. I made some harder quilts, like Penny Sampler and Bargain Basement; I made some easier quilts, like Briar Rose Boy’s Nonsense. I free-motion-quilted a whole bunch of quilts–charity quilts, quilts for Boston, my own quilts. I developed a set of quilter’s skills and a quilter’s eye, and this year, when I started thinking about “all the hard things” I wanted to do this year, Snake Trail topped my list.

And buddy was it worth every bit of the 2+ months (on and off, of course) I spent making it.

I made the quilt exactly as Denyse Schmidt calls for in her book. The quilt is twin-sized (I dream of one day having a guest room with a twin bed to put this on!) and took 48 blocks. Each block takes 14 snake “segments,” which had to be more-or-less hand-cut off a template. I used that clear, flexible no-melt template plastic, and stuck the templates to my fabric using scotch tape. Then, I used my ruler and rotary cutter to cut the straight edges, and my scissors to round off the top and bottom. 672 times. Then the pie pieces and weird maxi-pad middle pieces had to be cut (they were bigger so I rotary cut those around the same template-plastic-scotch-tape mess).

I had every intention of sewing the whole top up over the Boston MQG/Seacoast MQG retreat in March in Kennebunk Maine. Three days with no kid, no dishes to wash, no macaroni to make, no laundry to wrangle? I could make five quilts. No, but I forgot to factor in that I really need to sleep and actually I still need to eat and oh yeah this quilt is actually a hoss. A beast, if you will.

Though it did take longer than planned, the cutting was really the only tedious part. I found that the sewing went mostly smoothly. When I pieced together the blocks at the end, I had to be VERY careful to line up the snakes. It took a lot of unpicking. It took help from friends on Instagram.

The quilting was a bit of a challenge too. I had seen Don’t Call Me Betsy’s tutorial for Baptist Fan free-motion quilting and knew I really wanted to try it. Why I chose a monster beast of a twin quilt to try it out I’ll never know, except: could there be a more perfect quilting motif for this block design? It took two days and 2.5 Frixion pens, and quite a lot of positive self-talk at the sewing machine (if you look up close, my fans are WON KY) but holy cow you guys, the texture.

A final thanks should to go Sarah over at Smiles Too Loudly because SHE was the one who (maybe a little joking? I can’t tell) suggested that I try using the Kona Cerise as a background when I found white fabric JUST TOO BORING. She made me look super-smart but it was all her idea. Now, I can’t imagine this quilt any other way but cerise!

Now I can’t wait to take on my next challenge quilt. I cut an easy project to keep my hands busy while I plot and decision-make, but I have big ideas already 🙂

finished: single girl baby quilt

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finished quilts, single girl baby quilt

This is a story about a bucket list quilt and two quilters.

Who among us hasn’t looked at all the gorgeous Single Girl quilts out there and felt that potent mix of desire and self-doubt and template loathing? When I first started quilting through 2010 and 2011, I was vaguely aware that this was a quilt. And people were making it. And it was hard, and they griped about it and were proud of it, and finished it as though they had given birth. Of course, I thought, “psssshhhhh I can do that.”

I sewed my first curved blocks, and thought, “maybe not.”

In 2013 I felt like I really became a quilter. I started making quilts I was proud of, that I felt like could hold their own next to any other quilter’s. I don’t talk a lot about Big Goals and Things I Mean To Do, but my 2014 mentality is Try All The Hard Things. It’s time to sew that lawn top with the 1400 buttonholes up the back. Time to make a queen-size quilt that speaks to my style, and FMQ it on my little Janome. Time to knit little striped sweaters and big striped sweaters and learn some dadgum colorwork. Maybe even make the Elisalex.

When I write all those things I mean to do in a list, this Single Girl looks like both a piece of cake and the tip of the iceberg. Because really! Only four rings! Big huge curve to piece! Little bitty ol’ quilt! But I was scared, nonetheless. I knew I wanted to make this quilt for friends who were expecting their first son in March. They chose purple, orange, and gray for their nursery (they have the best taste) and I loved thinking of the kind of quilt these colors would make. I procrastinated, and stalled, and just didn’t make the quilt.

A week before the baby shower, Lucy and I flew to East Tennessee to spend a week with my family. I packed my Single Girl pattern, and a huge pile of fabric. My grandma packed her little Brother. Within 36 hours of landing in the South, Grandma and I had all the pieces cut for four rings and I had my first ring sewn together (see first photo in the post). Another 24 hours and we had the whole quilt pieced. What can’t two quilters do together?!

I was so blessed to get to work with my grandmother on this quilt. She’s healthy and strong and still a prolific quilter, but I know there will be times later in my life when I will look back on this project and finally realize what a sweet time this was.

We worked kind of assembly-line style. I used scotch tape to tape the paper templates down to my fabric, and rotary cut the straight edges (and then used the cutter to hack each piece out of the fabric). Grandma used scissors to cut around the curves of the templates. She also kept track of how I was distributing my colors across the rings. Then, I pieced the ring segments while she cut my background fabric. She’d press, I’d sew.

And she came up with the idea to do the orange and gray border, and swap it top and bottom. Smart!

At the end, Grandma came to two conclusions: 1) there is no reason to be afraid of this quilt, and 2) she would like to do one. I’ll be sending her a copy of the pattern as a thank-you for helping me.

I backed the little quilt in silver-gray minky and quilted it with a loose loopy FMQ pattern (it’s best not to get too fancy when you’re quilting minky). I did use a cotton batting for a heavier quilt–a March baby is a winter baby, in Boston! I handed off the quilt to the proud mommas-to-be this past weekend, and I think they were pleased.

I’m surely pleased to be able to cross this pattern off my list. (Though I think there’s another one of these coming this year!)

finished: tule mountains quilt

Tags

finished quilts, tule, tule mountains quilt

Observations that are going to take the place of a real post:

1) It’s easy to look like you’re finishing a whole bunch of stuff when you’re a blog slacker (slacking as in reading and posting). Ta-da! All the finishes! When really, I’m just not getting it together to post real WIP posts (which I invariably find more interesting to read, even if they are harder to write).

2) I’m a lazy quilt namer. This thing is in a box on the way to Texas right now–a gift for a dear friend–and I didn’t even think about naming it until I sat down to lazy-blog it. Ta-da! Fabric line + pattern = name!

3) I have the best, most helpful husband, who helped me photograph this quilt with NO complaining, even as the wind tried to grab the quilt right out of his hands. Marry a good person, quilters, one who doesn’t gripe about fabric expenditures or goofy quilt photo shoots. Bonus points for tallness.

4) Free-motion quilting really does get easier and more fun the more you do it. Things that help: Aurifil, and the correct FMQ foot. Finally I threw away my broken FMQ foot and questioned whether the $60 replacement my dealer sold me was correct, bought a generic FMQ foot for $14 on Amazon, and now quilting is going awesome. I’d never heard “try a different FMQ foot” in the list of FMQ troubleshooting advice you always hear, so here it is: try a different FMQ foot if you’re struggling with skipped stitches and thread breakage. Worst case is you’re out $14.

5) The most fun projects are the ones that possess you. In the middle of all kinds of deadline-chore-gift sewing, I HAD to make the blocks for this quilt using the tutorial Molli Sparkles posted. Had to. Immediately. Five in a day. I had to put the project down to finish all my obligation sewing, but then the blocks went easily and quickly once I was able to turn back to the project. The fabric? A stack of Leah Duncan’s latest line for Art Gallery Fabrics, Tule. (Had to get it used so I can have an excuse to buy Meadow in February.)

6) and the last: Back a quilt in Art Gallery Fabric, at least once before you die. The feel is like the crispest, softest, most-expensive luxury bedding you’ve ever felt. (Peg of Sew Fresh Fabrics, who sold me this backing, says it’s “like buttah.”) (AGF should make sheets. I’d spend a fortune.) And it crinkles perfectly in the wash. Amazing stuff.

this quilt is about 56” x 66”: a good throw size.

finished: snowy stars align quilt

Tags

finished quilts, snowy stars align quilt

the smallest one was Madeline.

She was not afraid of mice–

She loved winter, snow, and ice.

I’m amazed what picture books I can recite in part or in whole these days, but the classic Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans, will always be one of my favorites. I can recite it from beginning to end, without faltering, and these past two winters the line “She loved winter, snow, and ice” runs through my head on repeat. When I found out November was my month as a Grace Circle do. Good stitches quilter, I knew I wanted to do something freezy-cold wintery.

I made this quilt as my first do. Good Stitches quilt; you can find my original post about this quilt here. The block design is by Sarah of Stitching and Bacon (isn’t she smart?!) and can be found here. (Thanks to Sarah for letting us use your block!) (And thanks also to the Grace Circle ladies, who all sew with a PERFECT .25” seam. You gals are totally amazing, let’s make a bunch more quilts together.)

Happily we got a bit of snow–but not too much–the week after I finished this quilt and we were able to zip out and get a few photos. I backed this small quilt (about 52” x 52”) in a charcoal-gray minky and quilted loose, wonky loops across it. I did use Warm and Natural as a batting this time with the minky and it made for a really heavy, drapey, lovely wintery quilt.

Yes, I pin basted the minky. Yes, I agree it is a pain to stick the pins through the poly fabric but it really truly does work just fine!

This quilt is packed up and ready to be shipped this week to My Very Own Blanket, an organization that provides throw sized quilts to kids in foster care. I know the colors make it boy-appropriate but really? I’m hoping a little girl who loves blue–or, winter, snow, and ice–chooses this one.

finished: phoenix twin quilts i and ii

Tags

finished quilts, phoenix twins

I looked back at this post and realized I’ve been working on these quilts since August.

Really, I had lost track of time.

These quilts pushed me as a quilter. I started with a tiny idea, for some paper-pieced improv chevron blocks. I pulled some fabric; my friends and I changed our minds; I puttered and thought and hemmed and hawed. I don’t usually make quilts without patterns, you see, and starting these was a creative free-fall.

What if I ran out of fabric? Chicopee is still fairly easy to find but…what if it stopped being easy to find, right at the wrong moment? What if the block design was splitty and unstable? What if it all just looked like crap? What if I couldn’t finish them on time? What if I didn’t make them big enough? (I’m still a little nervous on that count. These suckers shrank big-time when I washed them, so they’re cutting it close width-wise.)

And then the even more insidious worries, like, what if I think I’m being creative and original and really I just saw something like this on the internet, forgot, and then regurgitated it. What if my friends say they like them and really, they don’t.

So, to me, these quilts have ended up being about me as a creator. About pushing aside those evil voices that nag at you when you’re working–voices that sometimes make you put down your work in discouragement.

I’ll be pleased to make a couple of quilts from patterns as my “next things,” but these have taught me that I can make something wild and beautiful that comes out of my own head. I can trust myself to do the quilt math, and make all the blocks, and do 20 hours of straight-line quilting, and produce quilted work that I’m very proud of.

I’ll be mailing my big babies off on Monday, to make my friends’ home a little warmer for Thanksgiving guests. I couldn’t be gladder that I took on this challenge–and I couldn’t be prouder of the results.

finished: scrappy spiderwebs quilt

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finished quilts, scrappy spiderwebs quilt

Remember when I won the spiderweb lottery blocks at my guild meeting in June? I felt like the luckiest gal alive.

I knew I needed to make a few more spiderweb blocks, sure. And I had a funky buttload of string scraps to use (even after Roy G. Zig). I felt sure that my beloved and much-coveted spiderweb quilt was close at hand. A quick finish!

Say it with me, in a Borat voice: NOT.

My first problem with this quilt I knew before I even left my guild meeting. This is a block that requires very consistent measuring and piecing to make all the star points meet correctly. If any one of my guild members had made 30 spiderweb blocks, all 30 of theirs would have made a perfect quilt. As it was, I had 16 blocks made by different hands, and the star points were just not going to all meet. This is the blessing and curse of bee quilts. I’m SO bowled over by the blessing of owning a quilt made by some of the most talented quilters in my geographic region, don’t get me wrong. But our points don’t match.

I know, call the quilt police.

My second issue with this quilt was that given my current quilting commitments (Penny Sampler, Phoenix Twins, two bees, some guild stuff, and holiday sewing looming ominously) I just knew I couldn’t scrape together many more spiderweb blocks. OK, I couldn’t do ANY more spiderweb blocks.

But then you brilliant people out there on the quilternet saved the day! Kelie of Craft Nurse Quilt posted this amazing finish on Flickr. I was struck by the fact that I didn’t HAVE to make 14 more spiderweb blocks! I could make more blocks, sure, but I could do them however the heck-o I wanted!

Then enter Kelly’s fabulous Serendipity scrap quilt, and the rainbow blocks Mary’s churning out. Why not some easy-peasy improv log cabiny blocks? Paintbox style? Around the edges? Quick, scrap-hoovering, perfect.

This plan looked fabulous and was so fun. Enter problem #3: then when I attached my sashing and improv blocks, the top wouldn’t lay flat. No amount of steam could flatten the sucker into submission.

So I thought, fine, okay, I’ll just stipple this bad boy and call it a day. HA. Problem #4. My backing wrinkled up twice and my front wrinkled up once before I had even an eighth of the quilt stippled. Then I spent a whole naptime watching a trashy movie and spitefully seam-ripping.

I finally gave in and straight line quilted it

and called it a day.

(I’m ignoring problem #5 I ran short of backing on one corner, problem #6 it’s not at all square, and problem #7 the first time I went to take photos of this they all turned out blue wth?)

You guys?

I love this hot mess of a quilt.

Thanks to the SMQG who made the blocks, and all of you who inspired me along the way! This is going to be my happy-times snow-days cuddle quilt this winter, I know it.

finished: a sewing machine cover for Samantha

Tags

finished quilts, garden district pattern, sewing machine cover

Oooooooo. It was so hard not to spoiler this project.

I kept thinking “just a sneaky peek like this!” Or, “just the back!”

But I had made a gentleman’s agreement. So I kept my mouth shut. And my photos off of Flickr.

Early this summer, Samantha emailed me to ask if I would be interested in swapping sewing machine covers. She was busy moving into her new home (and her new sewing room) and knew she would miss the deadline of the one she wanted to join on Flickr.

Of course. I love Samantha’s work, and I jumped at the chance to have a piece in her new, long-awaited sewing space.

I used some of the bright Liberty Stile I’ve been saving for just the right project–this definitely qualifies! There’s a Tsuru print in there, if you can spy it, and I’m not sure the last project I made without Pearl Bracelets in it.

I used the Garden District pattern, written by Corey Yoder of Little Miss Shabby, and published in the book Pillow Pop. Because I worked from stash instead of scrap, I chose to strip-piece the fabrics for the petal segments. This left me with enough leftover “slab” to make the skinny vertical borders, and to piece a little bit of color into the back. I made 8 blocks and laid them out 4 sets of 2, to make a 17”ish by 28”ish machine cover. Then, I used a sewing machine cover tutorial by Randi of i have to say to finish it off and add the binding and ties.

I sent it last Friday the 23rd from Massachusetts. It arrived with Samantha in British Columbia, Canada, today, the 28th. Record time! The USPS must have known how badly I wanted to share.

finished: ocean waves leftover quilt

Tags

finished quilts, ocean waves quilt

Sometimes I’m not sure what to say about a quilt that I haven’t already said.

1) It’s 50”ish by 50”ish. That’s baby quilt size. I’m keeping it. (#notpregnant)

2) I bought grey minky to back this quilt. When the day came to baste it, I couldn’t bear so much grey. It was one of those bright days when you could smell that autumn was around the corner, one of those days that makes you want to RUN OUTSIDE and find a way to preserve the sunshine for the long winter ahead. Canning? Tanning? At any rate. This quilt screamed for an orange back.

3) Because the front was seamy in the extreme, and the scrappy pieced back was also seamy, I quilted it with a very minimal, simple wavy FMQ design. (I borrowed Amy’s idea for our Indian Summer Quilt.)

4) The quilt is completely made of leftovers or small bits of stash. The binding is left over from my first Washi Dress. The batting is leftover bits. (I always piece batting together with a zigzag stitch. This isn’t great for FMQ, truly, but it always worked for me when I used to handquilt.) As I wrote in this post, the blocks are made from leftovers from my x-plus quilt. Even the back was leftovers from this little Twister quilt I made, my Liberty geese quilt, and every bit of reddish orange scrap I found in my pile.

5) I took these photos (with my husband’s help) at Crane Beach in Ipswich MA. I think this beach may be my favorite in the whole world. (I love it more than Aruba.) The water may be cold, but that view from the walkway onto the beach and the roses blooming in the bluffs just scream New England to me. Speaking of storing up sunshine, Lucy and I are doing our best to make as many “beach days” as we can before it’s wool-sock-weather again. Hope you are soaking up the August sunshine too!

finished: lucy’s soft blanket (or, patchwork frames quilt)

Tags

finished quilts, lucy's soft blanket, patchwork frames quilt

I just put my kid to bed with a blanket I suspect was a bit damp.

It got dirty and I had to wash it–and I yanked it out of the dryer at 8 pm, no matter what, because I knew there’d be a scene otherwise. She’s cried over this quilt at least twice in the two weeks I took to make it.

I finished stitching down the binding with her parked next to me on the sofa, butt wedged against mine. She wanted the “soft blanket” and didn’t quite understand why it wasn’t finished yet.

Maybe I shouldn’t encourage the melodrama, but I’m pleased as punch. You see, every time I try to put her to bed with the Lizzy House Glam Garlands quilt I made for her second birthday, she begs, “Not that one not that one.” She loves the tied fleece throw my mom made her for her first Christmas. When it was in the wash, there were bedtime tears. And while Lucy still loves her Elmo blanket from Nana, I’m glad to have some of the laundry pressure taken off! And…I’m glad to have made a blanket she totally loves.

I backed it in cream double-sided fleece, as suggested by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew. Per her suggestion I did not use a batting. This quilt is so soft and so drapey, that despite the little-girl fussy cuts and the peachy color scheme, my husband almost stole it for his own couch blanket. I have washed it twice and it is holding strong.

There’s much more minky in our future.

(And I definitely pin-basted this sucker before FMQing it. I had all intentions of spray basting but totally forgot to buy a can in my frenzy to buy the Juliana Horner fabrics at Joanns. Pin basting went fine for me, but I am a fastidious pinner and use hundreds of pins.)

Lucy’s love for it isn’t all that’s special about this quilt.

This quilt is really very special to me, too, because it’s a pattern that my friend Beth at Plum and June wrote! It’s her Patchwork Frames Quilt Pattern, available over at the Birch Organic Fabrics blog. I chose to make twelve blocks, unevenly spaced, and it made for a perfect toddler-throw size. (Folks: I didn’t have to piece the minky backing. Hallelujah.)

 

The pattern was a lot of fun to stitch up. In the pattern version, which will be available shortly, Beth includes instructions for strip-piecing the outer patchwork frames, which means that the quilt top goes together super-fast. I love the combination of the fussy cuts with the sweet patchwork. The skinny inner frame plus the patchy outer frame work together to “grow up” a kiddo’s novelty quilt, don’t you think?

Thanks, Beth, for sharing your pattern. And all of you–I hope you will share photos if you decide to make up this block in any size!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts‘ Finish it Up Friday

and TGIFF, this week over at BedTime Quilting!